by Kate Swain
I did love him, even though he had only been in my life for a few short weeks. I would have killed for him today, more than once, if I had needed to. Would have died for him in a heartbeat. I had never realized that was what it felt like to love a child.
Matt looked at me and I looked at him and then I abruptly looked away.
“I know,” Matt murmured. “I do, too.”
He looked away, throat working, and headed up the hallway towards Lucas’ bedroom. I stayed where I was, my head spinning.
I did love Lucas. And I loved Matt. And I had absolutely no idea if I would live long enough to be able to say that to either of them.
17
Matt
I knelt by the bedside in Lucas’ room, where my son lay on the bed. He was completely asleep: whatever medication they had given him for the pain was making him sleep more heavily than I had ever seen him. He was relaxed and restful, his ribcage rising and falling with the slow pace of sleep.
I looked away. I wasn’t sure if I could bear this.
When Amy had died, I had spent more time in a hospital than I had wanted. And now, sitting beside Lucas’ bedside, watching his little chest move, reminded me of having sat by his bedside for the weeks after her death. Lucas had somehow known she was gone – he hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten and he cried and clung to me and refused to settle down. He would only sleep if I sat with him.
“Sleep well, son,” I whispered to him and stood and walked out, turning the light off behind me as I did so.
When I left, I stood in the hallway, too overcome to speak. I didn’t want Tessa to have to see me like this. If I tried to speak, I was going to start crying and I didn’t want her to see me in such a mess. I took a deep breath and held it, trying to find calm again. When I felt a little better, I headed down the hallway to the living room.
“Tessa?” I called. I felt instantly bad. She was probably in shock, too – she got there before I did, after all. She should at least have some tea or something.
“Yes?” She said. She had a low voice, I noticed, and I also noticed that she conspicuously called me nothing – not my surname, nor my first name. I swallowed hard.
“Tessa, thank you. I can’t thank you enough for being here today. It was a real help.”
“It was nothing,” she said. Her eyes were guarded and she barely looked at me, focused on the carpet where it met the wooden floor.
“Would you like something to drink?” I asked. I stood, feeling desperately awkward. My son had broken his arm; I hadn’t suddenly been deprived of my manners!
She shrugged. “If you are,” she said.
I sighed. “Actually, there’s a bottle in that fridge that’s been half-open for a long time now. I reckon we should finish it.”
I went to the refrigerator. I was not much of a wine-drinker – the bottle in the door had been lurking since my neighbor had come in to wish me a happy Christmas and I had to give her something to drink. It was barely opened, and I undid the lid and poured two glasses, carrying the whole lot into the living room.
“Thanks,” I said again, as Tessa sat down opposite me. She regarded me across the table warily, as if she wasn’t very sure this was a good idea. Neither was I, but I didn’t have another one, and it didn’t feel bad.
“I wanted to be here.”
“I know,” I said. I frowned. “What you said earlier…”
“I meant it,” she said, not looking at me. “I know I shouldn’t have said it. But I did mean it. I love Lucas. I would do anything for him.”
“I know,” I said again. I did know that. It impressed me as well as touching me deeply. Having her there with us had made a huge impression on me. Knowing that there was somebody who cared about my son, who I could trust with him as if he was with me…
I found myself looking at her. She was sitting so still, those big green eyes focused on the carpet. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and her cheeks were pale. I could feel my breath in my throat and I realized that I was really feeling things for her that I thought I had forgotten how to feel.
“Sorry,” I murmured, realizing that I had been sitting opposite her without saying anything for what must have seemed like a very long time. “I was thinking.”
“It’s alright,” she shrugged.
I could see that haunted look in her eyes too, and I was aching to ask her about it. I took a sip of the wine, hoping that it would give me the courage to say something. She cleared her throat.
“You must have been worried,” she said.
I nodded. “I was terrified,” I admitted. With her, it seemed safe to admit to the utter horror I had felt. Having a call about Lucas reminded me of losing Amy. I would never forget that – part of my mind would never stop screaming. I hadn’t screamed then, but I had wanted to. I would never be the same after that moment.
“I can imagine,” she said softly. “You have had so much loss.”
“Yes.” My voice was tight. I cleared my throat. I didn’t know if I wanted to talk about that, or if I would be able to stop myself.
“I don’t want to intrude,” she said softly.
“Tessa!” I burst out without thinking about it. “You can’t intrude. Tessa, you’re part of our life. Mine and Lucas’.” I was intense when I said it. I meant it.
She looked at me, and those green eyes were round with horror. I realized that I was putting a burden on her – one she wasn’t ready to take. One that it was not fair to put on her. I shut my eyes, feeling my strength dissipate suddenly.
“Sorry,” I sighed. “I know it’s not fair of me to speak like that. I just guess I never realized how hard it was for me to face all this stuff alone. It’s huge for me to feel that I am not alone anymore.”
My eyes met hers and she stared at me and I was suddenly aware that her hand was resting very close to mine on the table. As I slid my hand over hers, she bent forward and her lips brushed mine. I was leaning in to kiss her, and I paused, wanting to say something, to tell her how I felt, that I was feeling for her like I had never thought to feel about anybody.
But I didn’t get a chance to say the words. Her lips pressed to mine and suddenly my tongue was in her mouth and my body was pressing to hers and she was in my arms and where my world had been cold and blank and empty there was suddenly warmth and softness and the scent of lavender. I shut my eyes and breathed in and my lips pressed to hers. I was filled with a longing that I knew I could not hold back, not even if I tried.
18
Tessa
I looked up at Matt, both eyes fastened on his. He was breathing heavily and the sound of him made me realize how aroused I was too. I swallowed hard and tried to ignore the ache under my belly. I focused on him, wondering what he intended with that – whether he thought this was a good idea or not.
“Tessa,” he whispered.
I looked at my toes, unable to hide anymore how deeply aroused I was. I was flushed and a slow pulse was filling me up from my feet to my head, focused in my belly. I didn’t know what to say and so I said nothing and he reached out and took my hand.
“Tessa….” He said, and this time it was a question more than a statement. I looked into his eyes and he nodded. He stood and I tightened my hand in his grasp and he lifted me to his feet, drawing me into his arms and crushing me to his chest.
I gasped and I could feel my fingers tightening on his back, raking my fingers down his skin. He groaned and drew me to him and then he lifted me up, so my feet were off the floor. I giggled and he pressed his face into my chest and I kicked as he carried me to his bed, both of us trying not to laugh loudly.
“Tessa,” he whispered again as he rested me on his bed and lay down beside me. “I don’t know if this is alright with you?”
I looked into his eyes, trying not to smile. Was it alright with me? I didn’t know to answer that question. It was wonderful, irresistible, impossible. It was everything for me. But yet, I still had no idea if it was alright to do this, to let myself feel t
his overwhelming tide of emotions I felt for him.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Matt sighed and rolled over, pressing his lips to mine. I pressed my body to his and gasped as he rolled on top of me. I could feel a hardness in his jeans pressing against my thighs and I rolled so that it rubbed against me, each movement of our hips making me feel more and more aroused.
I ran my fingers down his back and he gasped and held me to him, my breasts crushed against his chest. I could barely hold back and I ran my hands under his shirt, feeling the warm skin and the tightness of his muscles. He smiled and ran a hand through my hair, cupping my cheek in a gesture that made my heart melt.
I sighed as he started to undo the buttons of my shirt, one at a time. His touch was so exciting, and when he followed the stroking fingertips with his hot lips I shut my eyes. His hands reached in and moved my shirt back down off my shoulders.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured.
I reached up and stroked his hair. He smiled and took my hand and held it to his lips. I sighed and felt as if my heart would melt. This was a moment of intimacy on a level I’d never experienced before. I looked up at him and he smiled and bent down and pressed his lips to my breast. Feeling his lips tugging at my breast was so exciting that I gasped and lay against him, my body pressing to his.
He smiled and stroked my other breast with his fingers, my nipple in between his lips. I sighed and shut my eyes and let the sensations race from my breasts to inside my core, setting me alight. His hands stroked down to my thighs, parting them. I gasped as his finger explored my wet folds.
As he moved down, I took a deep breath, my body recalling how it had felt when his lips stroked me there. I arched back on the bed as his lips tugged at my folds and I tried not to cry out aloud as he pressed his tongue against my body, lapping at my skin.
He found the hard nodule between my folds and took it in his teeth and I couldn’t keep still anymore. I was crying out, my body twisting as he increased the pressure, rubbing with his tongue, biting it gently, then licking with strokes that got faster and faster. It felt like fire, running through my blood vessels.
The feeling was rising and growing in me, becoming impossible to resist, my body aching and tingling as he sucked and licked and nibbled.
I cried out, gasping as he bit me there again, the sensation melting through me impossibly.
Then I couldn’t move anymore, as waves of satisfaction washed through me and made me drowsy and relaxed.
Matt moved up the bed and lay beside me, stroking my hair. I sighed and nestled closer, my body tingling and feeling wonderful. I reached up and touched his hair and was surprised to feel my arousal returning, even though he had satisfied me so much. His warm body lying next to mine was enough to make me want him again and again.
He smiled, as if he sensed how aroused I was. I ran my hand down his body, feeling his hardness. He grinned at me and raised a brow. I smiled.
“I feel amazing,” I told him, and the sparkle in his eyes made me smile more. He rolled over and looked down at me, his leg parting my thighs. I reached for him and he bent to enter me.
Instead of staying with me lying below him, he gently moved me onto my side, and then, with him still inside me, I knelt up a little so that he entered me from behind. He gasped and thrust deeper and I loved to hear his panting breath. He was thrusting and grunting and slamming into me and I pushed back into him, feeling complete release as we moved together with a pace that felt so good, so right.
He gasped and gritted his teeth and I knew he was straining not to come, and, surprisingly, I was very close to coming myself. I held back too, or tried to. The sensations building and growing inside me were too much to resist, though, and I shut my eyes, fighting to keep them back.
He swallowed hard and pulled out, and I frowned as he rolled me onto my side, lying behind me. He pushed into me, his hands on my breasts, and I pushed back against him, loving the way it felt to be in his arms, with him so deep inside me. His breath was at my ear and I could hear him gasping, his hands tight on my breasts, his cock pushing into me again and again and again.
I cried out as I came, the sensations too unbearable. He laughed and I could hear how he was fighting to hold back, even though the sounds of my enjoyment were clearly overwhelming him. I lay there, completely drained.
He sighed and rolled me onto my back. I could feel his hands, so warm and tender, as he repositioned me on the bed, so that I was lying on my back and looking up at him. He looked down at me and I could see tenderness in his eyes along with arousal.
He stroked his hand down my body and then lingered at the parting of my thighs, his hand moving between my legs. I smiled to myself, seeing the way he gazed at me. It made me feel lovely inside to know that looking at me gave him pleasure.
He knelt between my legs and slowly, tenderly, pushed into me. I gasped and my arms wrapped him close as he started to move; slowly at first and then faster and faster. I could feel him rubbing on me inside, and I could hear how his breath was becoming more urgent, his movements less controlled and more wild, more driving. He was starting to gasp and I could feel how close to climaxing he was and I felt that awaken my own climax.
I started to gasp and he was panting and thrusting into me and then, suddenly, as he collapsed on me, I cried out too. We lay together, his sweat and mine mixing as we relaxed beside one another. I shifted a little and he moved onto one elbow, lying beside me with his hand on my chest. My arm was around him and I stroked his side.
Neither of us said anything. I couldn’t speak. I had never felt as much love as was flooding my heart in that moment. It was weird – in all fairness, I had only known Matt for a few weeks. But this feeling was undeniable, filling up my heart and blocking my throat with unshed tears.
Matt looked down at me, and, to my surprise, his face was as transformed as I felt.
“Tessa,” he whispered. “Maybe this is going to sound silly, but I’m a bit scared.”
“Scared?”
He swallowed hard. “Sorry,” he added, with a brief attempt at a laugh. “It’s just that I never felt this way about anyone – not since Amy. I never thought I would feel like this again.”
I closed my eyes. “Matt…” I whispered.
“I know,” he said, interrupting me before I had a chance to finish. “I know it’s a sudden thing, and it’s stupid. But I had to tell you.”
He bent down to kiss my lips and I wanted to move, to speak out and say that I loved him too, that I was scared because I had never felt anything like this before and I didn’t understand it. How I was frightened, too, because I was still hiding from two killers and I didn’t want to take his heart when I died.
But I didn’t say any of that because it seemed too hard to say. Instead, I held him while he lay beside me and then rolled me onto my side and entered me again, pushing into me with all the intensity and sweetness of our feelings, saying them without words.
I stroked his hair as he collapsed on me as I held him close, loving the feeling of his warmth in my arms, the fast pace of his breathing. I stroked his sweat-damp skin and breathed into his hair.
He held me close, and before long I felt the way his breath had deepened, a slow rise and fall that showed sleep. I didn’t want to move in case I woke him, and it was warm where he had drawn the cover over us, and I felt safe in his arms – safer than I had ever felt. Certainly safer than I had felt in the last few weeks.
I found my own eyelids drooping and sooner than I would have expected I was drifting off to sleep.
19
Matt
I stopped outside the workshop and swung my leg off my bike. I felt like I wasn’t the same Matt Brand who had last stopped his bike outside the shop. I had a full heart and a big smile and I was relaxed and at peace, simply content to be me.
I also couldn’t stop smiling.
I was in love and everything was so beautiful. I strolled into work, and Mark greeted me with a big yell. �
��Matt! You’re here! Come and say hi!”
I embraced him and smiled at him with a trace of irony. It was only a week since I’d seen him last – I had taken time off to care for Lucas in the first week following his accident. He was mending very well now, and getting impatient with having to be off school and inactive. This morning, I had waited until Tessa arrived, then kissed her and sped off to work, leaving her to take him to school. I was confident he would be more than okay in her care.
“How have you been?” Mark asked as I hugged him. “How’s my angelic nephew?” he grinned.
He was really fond of Lucas, the two of them having become very close over the last few years. He’d dropped in on the weekend and spent the time drawing with Lucas and teaching him to use his left hand. He had also made a few funny pictures on his plaster cast, much to my son’s delight.
“Your nephew is fine,” I grinned. “Getting annoyed at the inactivity, a bit.”
“Oh?” Mark laughed. “And he doesn’t get that from his father. Not a bit.”
I shoved him and he laughed and pushed me and I felt myself grin at getting back into our usual routine of mutual disparagement and general hijinks.
I changed into my overalls and settled down to work.
“This bike’s been through it, eh?” our friend Adam murmured, walking past where I was changing oil from an ancient Honda. I sighed and cleaned my hands and nodded.
“Yeah,” I said.
Adam hung around for a bit, chatting while I did a general service on the bike. It sounded like he was well and his life was going well – he’d been into a friend of Maddy – his sister – for ages, and progress was finally occurring.
“So,” I grinned, as Adam got up to leave, heading to do his own work as a customer came in. “Having a good time, eh?”